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Car-pedestrian collision fatalities have been reported for a significant number of roadside accidents around the world. Protection of pedestrians is taking on an increasingly significant role to car manufactures in developing new designs. The dynamic responses of the pedestrians in vehicle crashes can better be evaluated by examining the biomechanical responses. In order to reduce the lower extremity injuries in car-pedestrian collisions, it is important to determine the impact forces on the pedestrian and conditions that the car frontal side impacts on the lower extremities of the pedestrian. The Working Group 17 (WG17) of the European Enhanced Vehiclesafety Committee (EEVC) has developed a legform subsystem impactor and procedure for assessing pedestrian collisions and potential injuries. This study describes a methodology for the evaluation of the legform impactor kinematics after a collision utilizing finite element (FE) models of the legform and cars, and comparing the simulation results with the ones from a multi-body legform model as well as a 50th percentile male human pedestrian model responses. Two approaches are carried out in the process. First, the collision strike simulations with the FE model using an FE lower legform is considered and validated against the EVVC/WG17 regulation criteria. Secondly, the collision strike simulations with a multi-body legform and an ellipsoidal multi-body car model are conducted to compare the responses from the FE model and the multibody model. The results from the impact simulations of FE legform and the multi-body legform are also compared with the ones from a full-size pedestrian model at different speeds. All the FE models of the legform impactor and the car model are developed and evaluated using the LSDYNA nonlinear FE code, while the multibody legform, car, and full-sized pedestrian models are developed and evaluated in MADYMO. The results from this study demonstrate the differences between the subsystem legform and the full-size pedestrian responses as well as suitability of various FE and multibody models related to pedestrian impact responses.

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Thesis (M.S.)--Wichita State University, College of Engineering, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering